Loretta Lynn's Countdown: Georgia on our Minds

We are getting down close to the top-five championship states of all time in our Scott Sports Countdown to the 43rd annual the Monster Energy AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch, where we tally up the win totals of each state in the union and explain the big reasons they got there. In this post, we reach the very fast Peach State, which has direct roots to the beginning of Loretta Lynn’s back in 1982 as well as that other institution of American motocross, Kawasaki Team Green, a youth and amateur support program that has won more titles than any other such entity over the years.

In the fall of 1981, when the idea of Loretta Lynn’s as a week long AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship was coming together, so was the Kawasaki Team Green program. But it was based at Kawasaki’s eastern offices in Georgia, not the U.S. HQ in California. As a result, two of the first hires were a pair of Georgia riders in Forest Park’s Keith Turpin and Fairborn’s “Bad” Billy Liles. Turpin was still on minicycles and already had AMA titles from the previous incarnations of the Youth Nationals, so it was no surprise that he would win the 85cc (14-15) Modified title in the early years, but injuries always hampered him at the ranch. He would win a 125SX East Region title a few years later, but by then he was on a Honda. As for Liles, he ended up turning pro in ’82, which made him ineligible to race at the LLMX until his pro career—which took him all over the world—came to and ended in the nineties.

As for Kawasaki in general, as the first the first OEM to commit to the Loretta Lynn’s concept, they were parked behind the starting gate at the ranch that first year. They have remained there ever since, often with a big green inflatable thumb signaling their presence.

Georgia of course is also home to Cairo, the site of plentiful training facilities where kids move to get ready for their hoped for professional careers. As a result, it is home to an inordinate amount of championships, though from kids who are not actually from the tiny town of about 10,000 residents. But 25 Loretta Lynn’s titles attributed to one small town? That ranks Cairo higher than half states! Tops among them is the Cairo kids is Davi Millsaps, whose mother Colleen helped kickstart the whole training facility movement when she set up MTF (Millsaps Training Facility) in Cairo in the late nineties. Colleen was following in the tracks of Ricky Carmichael, who forged most of his professional titles at his GOAT Farm, now the base of operations for Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing’s pro and amateur programs. Davi Millsaps was born in St. Cloud, Florida, but all nine of his AMA Amateur National titles are credited to Cairo. So are the five of Zach and Chase Bell, the two of Gannon Audette, one from the British transplant Steven Clarke, etc. (And current Triumph factory rider Joey Savatgy lists nearby Thomasville, 15 miles east of Cairo, as home to his three AMA Amateur National Motocross Championships.